I played Alamaze for a lot of years, which was created by the same guy (McDowell). I think his brother Phil still runs Pegasus Productions, which owns Alamaze, unless Phil's health finally gave out. Fall of Rome looks very, very like Alamaze, but without Magic.

Kingdoms of Arcania looks to bring magic back in. McDowell has done a great job in his other games of creating balanced games with completely different starting positions, so I'd expect a pretty good game again from him.